Babatomiwa Moses Owojaiye

This a continuation of our last post on the recent religious crises in Nigeria. As you can see from the title, our preoccupation in this post is to briefly look at what the Bible says about what should be the attitude of a Christian to his neighbors. So, this post will basically be addressing Nigerian Christians (as well as those in similar situation world over) with the aim of giving an evangelical voice to the incessant Muslism-Christian unrest in Nigeria.

One important thing Christians in Nigeria must realize is the fact that God is aware of the presence of other religions in our World and especially in Nigeria. Religious diversity has lived throughout the ages and this according to Mbillah, “is not without the knowledge of God”.[1] The argument here is not to say that God is responsible for these religious diversities but the fact remains that the existence of these diversities is definitely not without his knowledge. The understanding of the above should lead us to two theological facts that should drastically changed Christians’ attitude to the Muslims in Nigeria. One, Christians must always bear in mind that human being are created in God’s image- the imago Dei[2] When God says, “let us make man in our likeness” (Genesis 1: 26), the meaning is that God plans to make a creature similar to himself.[3] The main issue here is that, all human beings are made in the image of God irrespective of the religious beliefs and practices. Grudem argues that, “God created us in his image for his glory and so, our purpose in life is to glorify him.”[4] Any disregard to this arrangement is violation of divine order. Therefore, respect and sanctity for human life must always be maintained. Any Christian involvement in violence with Muslims as a way of revenge, or for whatever reason is definitely acting against the purpose of God for mankind. Thus, the image of God in humanity is critical to our understanding of what makes us human and its implications should inspire us and set the parameters for our view of all humanity.[5] Secondly, another issue that should change Christian’s attitude toward the Muslims in Nigeria is the issue of general revelation. This implies that “God has given us enough general revelation to condemn us of our sins but not enough to save us”.[6] Christians must learn to understand that God has revealed himself in many ways to mankind and Islam must be seen and regarded as one of these ways. In fact, the Bible itself teaches God reveals Himself to men generally, in nature, in history, and in their moral consciousness (Psalms 19; Romans 1).[7] If the Christians in Nigeria have this background in mind, their attitude will change for the positive even towards our neighbors or any human being for that matter.

Thus says the Lord:

The Bible warns that “evil should not be repay with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). The Circumstances surrounding the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross and that of Stephen in the early Church set us an example (John 19; Acts 7: 54-60). In the two instances, never was violence employed by the early Christians to fight back or to avenge the evil done the Church. Rather they submitted everything to God. The early Christians drew even enemies of the Cross to Christ by their good dispositions toward them. According to John Stott,

Stephen’s martyrdom later had a great deal of influence on Saul and it supplemented the influence of Paul’s teaching. Not only did it deeply impress Saul of Tarsus, and contribute to his conversion which led to his becoming the Apostle to the Gentiles, but it also occasioned ‘a great persecution’ which led to the scattering of the disciples throughout Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1).[8]

The Bible makes it clear that God abhors violence (Gen.6:11, 13; Mal. 2:16). He instructs us to avoid it and turn from it: “Give up your violence and oppression and do what is just and right (Ezek. 45:9; see also Jer. 22:3). Jesus pronounced specific blessings on those who bring an end to violence, saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt.5:9). Yusufu Turaki corroborates this truth when he says, “human beings tent to meet violence with violence, sword with sword, and evil with evil. But violence cannot be addressed on its own terms.”[9] Turaki noted further that “the Bible recognizes this when it speaks of someone’s violence coming ‘down upon his own head’ (Psalm 7:16) and it states that all who draw sword, will die by sword’ ” (Matt. 26:52).

By contrast, Jesus calls on us to meet violence with peace (Romans 12:17-21), sword with forgiveness, evil with good (Luke 6:27-31), and wrath with love. Jesus and his disciples modeled non-violence by not retaliating when they suffered violence (1 Pet. 2: 20-24).[10] Turaki argues further that,

Jesus’ approach to violence was based on his knowledge of the nature of God, as the sovereign judge and ruler, and on the nature of his mission. He did not fail to retaliate because he was weak but because he deliberately chose to demonstrate God’s power over human circumstances. He also dealt with the root cause of human violence, which is evil and sin. Thus he patiently endured the violence of the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman government until he overthrew both by his resurrection from the dead. The way of the cross brings eternal liberation and eradication of evil.[11]

Above all, the antidote to a retaliatory attitude is love. The Bible teaches that we should love even our enemies (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27-36). Indeed the heart of Jesus’ teaching is love. Jesus forbids treating others spitefully but he commands us to love everyone, even our enemies. This does not mean that the Muslims are our enemies but that we have no excuse for not loving them. For Paul, loving others is the single most important characteristic of the Christian life and the heart of the Christian living. Everything one does is to be an expression of love (1 Cor. 16:14).[12] When Christians in Nigeria allow the love of Christ to prevail in their hearts, they will soon realize it is the best way to cub Christian-Muslim crises in the society. Besides, the role of the Holy Spirit in the maintaining peace and order between Muslims and Christians in Abuja cannot be over emphasized (Acts 10:1-48).

Nigerian Christians must realize that to prevent future occurrence of face-off between them and the Muslims much is expected of them. According to Paul Martinson, “successful encounter requires genuine interest in the other person, willingness and ability to share information about oneself and one’s traditions, and openness to being questioned. Of course the most important ingredient is to accept and treat the other person as an individual on equal terms: as a person with a personal history, with personal hopes and expectations, with personal fears and hurts.”[13]

Conclusion

In our next post, we shall attempt to offer recommendations from our experiences on this topic towards achieving peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, before we change our gear to another area of interest in African Christianity.

[6] John G. Stackhouse Jr., “Afterword: An Agenda for Evangelical Theology of Religions.” No Other Gods Before Me? Evangelicals and the Challenge of World Religions, ed. John G. Stackhouse, Jr., 189-201. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

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This a well thought biblical approach to the issue. there is great need for Christians in Nigeria to adopt the biblical response to the major issues of life. i recommend that the leaders in Nigeria read this and i pray that God will help them to be peacemakers.

Thanks for your kind words and sincerity, brother Harnuna. I guess the Church would
need to keep praying and speak out so that the wrong impression people outside Nigeria
already had about the Jos crises would be put in the right perspective.

Thank you Brother MOSES for raising such a sensitive issue about christian verses Muslims relationships in Nigeria. An issue that our politians need to give a serious attention to beside church and mosque relationship alone.
We are in difficult times that news breakers rearly carry the exact facts to the media. Using Jos crisis as a case study, there has never been a time that the church mobilized her members to go out and fight the Muslims. The whole issue of Jos unrest is political. The Muslim man wants to dominate the city of Jos by hook or crook (something that even Usman Dan Hodio jihad was unable to do in our Nigerian history) in the 21st century.
The voice of the muslim/christian crisis is the voice of Jacob in Isau’s skin (Gen.27:22) in Jos. it is most unfortunate that crisis in northern Nigeria hide behind religion to give a bad image of the church. I strongly feel that Nigeria is suffering from lack of respect of law, human lives and economic growth because few selfish individuals want to dominate and loot what others have spent their lives to gather.
Will you consider a brother you welcomed and provided a settlement for him to stay with you as a neighbour who wakes up one day and unexpectedly attacked your brother’s family and erased the entire family under the surface of the earth to claim your earthly enheritance as a religious crisis?

both muslims and christians should understand their common ancestor-Abraham and God has not called anyone to kill in His name.Difference in faith is not a reason to kill anybody or destroy properties.Of course anybody who kills his brother or sister is not truly serving God.